Page 58 of Wed to the Orc Captive

Sephar was looking back, his face lit with surprise. The voices, the crowd, were rising, and Vrathgar…

Vrathgar’s face was horror.

A hand gripped my wrist, tugged. “Sis,” Tyralk whispered. “Please stop⁠—"

My wrist.

I twisted free, pulled the sleeve away. “He wants to talk about marks on my arm? What, you want to compare them to his mouth? I know my teeth are smaller than his! Anyone could tell this wasn’t from him!” And my face was hot, but I didn’t let my volume drop, wouldn’t go quiet while they all stared. “There is no way…there is no way I'm the only bride to bite down on something on the first night. I refuse…to let you blame him for this.”

Someone, surely was translating, all those whispers, glares. But Vrathgar’s eyes were still wide, and his face was pale, paler than I’d ever seen him. He wheeled to the chieftains in the middle of the circle, everything about his tone changed. “Drazha,” he said, “please⁠—"

He was speaking Common, like it was a secret. Like it was a secret that he’d beg. Beg for what?

Drazha’s facade didn’t waver, cold. “She wishes to be addressed in the circle,” her words sliced. “We must allow it.”

“She doesn’t know what it means.”

“Then that was your responsibility to educate her, wasn't it? Rootless One?”

Vrathgar looked at me like he was watching me die. Hands grabbed my shoulders, yanked me back, out of the circle of stones. Tyralk.

Another form leaped into the circle, the sorcerer’s husband, Khal, and Orcish tumbled from his lips.

Tyralk’s eyes were glazed, his breathing too fast. I looked up at him, pleading for some explanation, some answer. “He…” He swallowed. “He says the trial is invalid because the first mother to have a right of challenge has not been consulted. Vrathgar hasn’t brought you to his mother’s home…so before anything else can be done he must be made to obey the ways.” He looked down. “Stay here. Please.”

I stayed. The tall man— Tyralk’s father— was speaking, his brow still furrowed in distaste.

“He says that the law is not broached to invalidate the ring of challenge because she’s not a mother among the people. Khal is…” he drew breath again, shuddered. “He’s cutting deep on this.”

“How do you cut deep with arguing over mothers?”

Tyralk looked discomfited. “If…if she is not a mother among the people she should be treated as a daughter. He’s saying…that those who claim to care so much about the weak must grant dignity to their sister, since if nothing else—" his hand twitched, still holding on my arm. “—the bride they’re worried about wants none of their protection.”

The woman with the hair ornaments stepped forward, between Khal and the man, raised her hands. Drazha glared past her, a glare her son did not acknowledge.

“The trial is called broken,” Tyralk murmured. “It is recommended that all parties should find better evidence and raise witnesses who can speak. This…this will reconvene.” He released an explosive breath. “It wasn’t a trial.”

She looked at Vrathgar, and muttered some final salvo.

“It is recommended that someone teach you the rules.”

Vrathgar bowed, touched his brow again, murmured something. The difference between the man who’d swaggered into this ring and the man standing near the edge was too much, too pale, too shaken.

He stepped over the boundary, back to me, his eyes running over me. “Never do that again,” he growled, and I would have stepped back, away from him, but Tyralk was at my back.

“Do what?”

“The circle is for those who are blooded. You are not. If Khal hadn’t blocked the trial, and you were challenged…” He shook his head. “If you step into the circle as witness, you pledge you’re ready to fight in proof. You can’t…they could have killed you.”

I hugged myself. “You didn’t tell me.”

He snapped, “I didn’t think I needed to.”

Why was I still angry? “I wasn’t going to let him use me to lie.” Why was it him I was spitting words at? “Did you think I was going to stand there silent while someone slandered you?”

“He can lie because he’s blooded; he has standing. Just…let us handle this. Please.”

It shouldn’t have stung. I was already the wife he’d rejected; now I was also someone who couldn’t even speak. “Is it like this for Khal’s wife, too?”